The Delta Ice Hawks at least reached the podium at the Cyclone Taylor Cup provincial junior "B" hockey championship but no doubt it was bittersweet seeing which team was standing at the top.
The Ice Hawks capped a memorable 2011-12 season with a 5-3 win over the Beaver Valley Nitehawks in Sunday's bronze medal game. Three hours later they watched the host Abbotsford Pilots win the gold medal game 3-2 in overtime against the Victoria Cougars to earn the opportunity to represent B.C. at next week's Western Canadian Championships in Saskatoon.
That's the same Pilots team the Ice Hawks had defeated in six games to capture the Pacific International Junior Hockey League championship two weeks earlier. However, Abbotsford dealt Delta's gold medal hopes a huge blow with a 6-4 roundrobin win on Friday night, then clinched a spot in the final with a victory against Beaver Valley Saturday, despite the Hawks cruising to a 7-2 romp over Victoria.
"It is definitely an opportunity lost but you can't change it now," said general manager Peter Zerbinos. "It is what it is and we move forward from it. We are not going to sit here and sulk about it."
The Ice Hawks opened cup play by cautiously playing Beaver Valley to a 1-1 draw last Thursday. Based on the 2011 tournament and the the Nitehawks' success in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, it seemed like a positive result.
A year ago, the Richmond Sockeyes dominated the PIJHL from start to finish, losing just three games the entire playoffs, yet finished last at the provincials. It was the KIJHL champions who won gold and the high-scoring Nitehawks looked to be another worthy contender.
However, the tournament took a dramatic change Friday afternoon when Victoria blanked Beaver Valley 3-0 for its second straight win to clinch a spot in the final. It also set-up a pivotal evening matchup between the Ice Hawks and Pilots with the winner having inside track to be the other gold medal game opponent.
Cody Fidgett's goal with 6: 13 remaining in the second period gave the Hawks a 3-2 lead. The Pilots answered less than two minutes later on the power play and would go on to convert three of five chances, including the game winner midway through the third period.
"It was game we came out kind of flat and I didn't think we played our best hockey," said Zerbinos. "We took some untimely penalties that really hurt us and we made our own bed by not bringing our 'A' game on top of that.
"One of the things we were worried about is every so often we seemed to take a night off. We always have recovered from it because it's usually a seven game series. In this tournament one bad stretch can cost you the entire championship and that's pretty much what happened."
Delta looked like it might miss the podium altogether when Beaver Valley struck for a pair of goals in the bronze medal game to take a 3-2 lead with less than 10 minutes remaining. However, Spencer Traher scored his final goal as an Ice Hawk with 5: 31 remaining and rookie Kolten Grieve celebrated his 18th birthday 35 seconds later with an unassisted effort for the game winner.
Appropriately, three graduating 20-year-olds, who played a huge part in this team's success, combined on an insurance marker as Fidgett scored from John Proctor and Traher.
"Our objective from the start was to win our league and get to the Cyclone Taylor Cup," added Zerbinos. "This team has been built for the last three years to thrive in a seven game series. This was a completely different format for us and we have learned from it and hopefully we will be back again."
Icing... The Ice Hawks received added support for the tournament from the Vancouver Giants who looked after the team's equipment and uniforms throughout the weekend.
"They lent their guys to us and everything was set-up like a Western Hockey League team," said Zerbinos. "They were kind enough to offer their services to another Delta based team and I can't thank them enough for what they did."
